Duolingo is evaluating growth after launching a new onboarding flow for free users. Two weeks after launch, product leadership wants to know which metrics should be used to judge early success versus long-term business impact.
In the first 14 days post-launch, onboarding completion increased from 62% to 71%, Day-1 lesson start rate increased from 48% to 57%, and push notification opt-in increased from 36% to 44%. However, paid subscription conversion has only moved from 3.8% to 4.0%, and 30-day retention is not yet fully observable for most exposed users. The GM asks you to explain the difference between leading indicators and lagging indicators in this growth context, identify which metrics belong in each category, and recommend how to use them together without overreacting to short-term movement.
experiment_exposure: user_id, variant, exposure_date, platform, countryonboarding_events: user_id, step_name, step_completed_atlesson_events: user_id, lesson_started_at, lesson_completed_atnotification_preferences: user_id, opt_in_status, updated_atsubscriptions: user_id, trial_start_date, paid_start_date, plan_typeretention_daily: user_id, activity_date, active_flag